Journo Bashing

The right slams PBS anchor Gwen Ifill. The left takes a chunk out of FNC Chief White House Correspondent Ed Henry. And a new feature is born: “Journo Bashing.”

Let’s take a look.

Both Newsbusters and Big Hollywood, well-known right-wing sites, blast Ifill for referring to Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman as “white” on her Monday night broadcast. On Newsbusters, Tim Graham, Director of Media Analysis for the Media Research Center, writes that Ifill “mangled” the story by calling Zimmerman white when Zimmerman has a white father and a Latino mother. He writes, “By that one-white-parent standard, you could call President Obama ‘white.'”

WTF?! Over at Breitbart.com, Tony Lee (recently terminated from Human Events) writes, “The mainstream media just will not give up in their efforts to fabricate racial motivations in the Trayvon Martin case, even when none likely existed.” Really? Quite a declaration considering the story has consumed the nation for racial reasons for the past month. Lee goes a notch beyond Newsbusters and insults Ifill, calling her work “dishonest.” He writes, “On Monday’s broadcast of PBS’s ‘Newshour,’ Gwen Ifill simply–and dishonestly–referred to Zimmerman as ‘white,’ trying to impose the false media narrative that Zimmerman was a ‘white’ guy who racially profiled and shot an innocent black teenager in cold blood.” Lee went on to bash Ifill for saying that Trayvon’s killing has sparked a national discussion on race, justice and self-defense. Lee declares that “Ifill is wrong,” and blames journalists like her for “forcing” a discussion that he says wouldn’t have otherwise existed. We’re calling major bullsh&t on this one. Read the story here.

Ouch! Firedoglake, meanwhile, rips on Henry for allegedly not understanding home loans. In a story bearing the headline, “More Terrible Media Stories About Housing,” David Dayen writes, “When Ed Henry shows that he doesn’t know how home loans work, it means more than just a commentary about the ignorance of one media personality. It means that more complex issues about housing policy have no chance of moving past the demagoguery stage.” He’s referencing this exchange between Henry and HUD Sec. Shaun Donovan from early February.